Yakking it up at the top of the world

I really like this picture of a yak (Photo credit: Joel Berger/WCS/University of Montana).

Nearly 1,000 wild yaks have just been found in a remote Tibetan Plateau. Yaks are the third largest land mammal in Asia, and once dotted the steppe. A recent press release from the Wildlife Conservation Society tells me that they were decimated by overhunting in the mid 20th century.

But an expedition to the mid-eastern Tibetan-Himalayan highlands (nice work if you can get it) has discovered this large new herd. Credit to a team of American and Chinese conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Montana.

Photo credit: Joel Berger/WCS/University of Montana)